Conquer or Compromise Revelation 2:12-17

Good evening, everybody. Hope you're doing well. I got off track just a little bit this evening. I'm early. I wanted to go ahead and get started. I hope some folks will join us this evening, but I hope you're doing well.

This is truth and love, and I get truth and love from Ephesians chapter 4 verse 15, where it says, but speaking the truth and love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ.

So I want to speak truth, and I want to speak truth and love, and I want to grow up in all aspects into Christ, and I want to do it with you. I want to do it together, and I want to share God's word. I want to share the gospel with the community, and I want to do that together with you as well.

So if you would, will you give us a heart? Will you give us a like? Will you give us a share? Will you pray for me? Pray for this ministry? Any way that you would feel led to partner with me and reach our community, I would love to have you join with me.

I'm also looking for folks that are willing to do a video. All I'd like for you to do is read the verse of the day and post that video so that we can have God's word going out to our community as much as possible.

I would love to have more folks that are willing to do that. Read the verse of the day. You can add some commentary if you'd like to, a little testimony, whatever you would like to do. But I'm looking for folks that are willing to do a video, post a video onto this ministry's website or page so that we can have a common place and God's word can be getting out every day, constantly to our community.

Christ's Message to Pergamum in Revelation 2

So tonight we're going to look at Revelation chapter 2 verses 12 through 17. And this branch is all from the sermon I heard Sunday. I'm not going to do a sermon review. What I'm going to do is take a look at this passage and what encouraged me from this passage.

But it was brought to light because we're going through a series of sermons at church based on the seven letters at the beginning of Revelation. And what we looked at was Romans Revelation 2, 12 through 17, looking at the third letter, the third church.

And I want to do that tonight. We shouldn't be here too long. But what I saw was very encouraging, very exciting to me, and I hope it will be to you. Hopefully it will be helpful to you. So let me read the passage and we'll get things going.

Revelation chapter 2 verses 12 through 17. And if you want to follow along. But I have few things against you because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality.

Thus, you also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Repent, therefore, who else or else I am coming to you quickly and I will make war against them with a sword of my mouth.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches, to him, whoever comes to him, I will give some of the hidden manna and I will give him a white stone and a new name written on that stone, which no one else but he receives it.

Faithfulness in a Hostile Place

The first thing that that come out to me that I wanted to share with you to make sure that everyone gets as we look at these letters in Revelation is the very first part. The author is writing to, of course, these words are in red.

This is from from Jesus Christ. It indicates that Jesus is speaking. These letters are coming from him through John to these churches, and these letters are written to a specific church, to specific churches, to specific people at that time.

So it says to the angel, the church in Pergamon, there are. I know there are. I know where you dwell. You hold fast to my name and do not do not deny my faith. He speaks of Antipas, my witness, my faithful one who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.

But I have a few things against you, so we can't gloss over that. We must understand that these letters were written to specific people for a specific time, for specific reasons. Now, we can take these letters and there are things that we can apply to ourselves.

There's principles and understandings that apply to us that we can take out of this and understand for ourselves. But we can't gloss over the fact that this was written to a certain people at a certain time for certain reasons.

And we want to look at some of those reasons, and I want to look at some of the application that's there for us. It's interesting that in verse 13, he says, you were there. I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is.

What we learned in the sermon from the pastor was that there were temples there and one that was kind of like in a U shaped. And that was where they worship false gods. They had emperor worship there.

And Jesus is telling these folks, this is where Satan's throne is. This is where Satan's seat of authority is. And not only that, but this is where Satan dwells. So this is a very evil place, a place that has a lot of evil, a lot of demonic influence that they must live in.

And despite the fact that there's so much demonic influence and that Satan, his seat of power there is there. And that's where he dwells, that they are commended by Jesus for holding fast his name and not denying the faith.

He even had a martyr there. So that's encouraging for us that all this evil is accumulating here in one place in Pergamum. But yet the people there of the church remained faithful, at least some of them.

And then there were some that he had something against. Three things that jumped out to me that we can draw some application from is this. The first one is tension. We live in a world similar to Pergamum there in our country.

Even in our country, there are temples to other gods. There are churches to other gods and people worship other gods, not even in buildings or temples, but out in the forest, in the woods. We live in a place where everything goes.

Mostly there's self-worship here in our country. And so as we try to live the Christian life, just as in Pergamum, there's going to be tension. There's going to be tension as we try to live according to God's ways, be obedient to him and living in a place where there's demonic influence, where there is a worship of other gods, where people are free and seeking to do and live however they want to live.

There's going to be tension. People are going to hate us. You see what's going on in Canada right now where ministers are being arrested and put in prison and have court dates because they are holding worship services, which goes against the policies, the rules there in Canada because of the COVID virus.

And now I think they are passing laws that are restricting what people can say on social media. I'm not sure of all the details, but it seems like the noose is tightening. The leash is getting shorter.

Whatever analogy you want to use, it's getting to be far worse for our Christian brothers and sisters there in Canada than it is here for us. We still have freedom to do what we're doing here, to go to church.

But anywhere where Christians live here in this fallen world, there's going to be tension. The second thing that I saw was that there's going to be temptation. We have not made it to our glorified state yet.

We are going to be tempted with what the world has to offer because we are still living in our flesh. And so there are things that are enticing. There are things that are pleasing to our eyes and pleasing to our ears.

We want to fit in. So there is temptation 24 -7 for all of us as we live in this fallen world, just like here in Capernaum or in Pergamum. There was temptation for them. And we're going to see a little bit more in detail, maybe what that was as Jesus speaks of what he had against them.

And then the third thing that I saw was tribulation. I've already mentioned the things that the pastors and our brothers and sisters in Canada are going through. They're being arrested. They're going to prison.

They're being limited on what they can say. They're going through some tribulation and persecution there in Canada. There's tribulation for us as we try to stand on our convictions, hopefully standing on Scripture, getting those convictions from Scripture.

But as we stand on them, there's going to be tribulation. There's going to be friction. In other places in the world, there's always been greater tribulation for our brothers and sisters. Christians are still being put to death because of their faith in other countries today.

Earlier in our country, as Christianity was growing and spreading, there were restrictions on how you could worship. I know as a Baptist, part of our heritage here in this country, there were churches that didn't want you to baptize by immersion, didn't believe in believers' baptism.

Some Baptist preachers here in the early years of our country were imprisoned. Baptist preachers were drowned, put underwater because there were people there that opposed believers' baptism and believers' baptism by immersion.

There's going to be tribulation for us as well. We're promised that. We're promised trials and tribulations. We're promised that people will hate us because they first hated him. And so we're going to go through those things.

We're going to go through tension. We're going to go through temptation, and we're going to go through tribulation. Here, Jesus tells us that one of his faithful witnesses, he says, my witness, my faithful one, which was Antipas, was killed because of his faith there in Pergamum.

So they had to go through tribulation. They had to go through the tension and the tribulation and the temptation. And what about this temptation? That kind of leads us to the story in verse 14 and the reference to the Old Testament.

And it also brings me to a greater encouragement that I saw in this passage. So in verse 14, Jesus references the story of Balaam and Balak, which come from Numbers. You can go back to the book of Numbers, chapters 25 and chapters 31.

You can see it referenced in 2 Peter 2 .15. But Jesus references the story of Balaam, who was a prophet, and Balak was the king of Moab. And it said, I have a few things against you because there are some of you who hold to the teaching of Balaam and the teaching of Balak.

And it's putting a stumbling block before the sons of Israel. So what did he mean by this reference to Balaam and Balak? So we have to understand a little bit of the background to get the reference. And I wanted to share that with you real quickly, what that reference is, so we can understand what's going on here.

So Moses was leading Israel through the wilderness, and they were going to the promised land. And they were conquering these cities as they were trying to establish the promised land. God was telling them to conquer these cities so that the promised land could be theirs.

And as they were approaching, the king of Moab, Balak, saw what was going on. They saw that Israel was taking captive and taking down these neighboring cities. And he didn't want it to happen to the city of Moab.

So he calls this prophet in his town that he knows called Balaam. And what he wants Balaam to do is pronounce a curse against Israel. But to make a long story short, Balaam is telling the king, I can only say what God says.

And God has not cursed Israel. So therefore I can't curse Israel. I can only bless Israel. But we find out, and so of course Balak gets mad at him because he won't do what he says. He won't curse Israel and save his town, his city of Moab.

But what we find out later is that even though Balaam couldn't go against God, of course he feared death by going against God. So he couldn't go against God as a prophet. He couldn't speak what God didn't speak.

He found a different way to get to Israel. And what he did was he used the women of the city of Moab to entice the men and tempt them into immorality, which of course would lead them to the worship of the false gods and the idols.

The men fell into this temptation. And so therefore, let me flip over to it real quick because it's interesting, the wording here. Numbers chapter 31, verse 16, Behold, these calls the son of Israel through the council of Balaam to trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor.

So the plague was among the congregation of the Lord. So because they fell into temptation, the plague was among the congregation of the Lord. And now what's going on here? What does Jesus have against some who are at the church of Pergamum that are behaving like the sons of Israel did in listening to Balaam and Balak?

Well, you've got all this idolatry. You have all this immorality that's going on in Capernaum. And so they are compromising their faith. It says causing them to eat things, sacrifice to idols and commit acts of immorality.

So they are being they are guilty of what Israel was when they come up on Moab. They were compromising their faith. And being enticed by the temptation that was there in Capernaum, messing with the idols and committing acts of immorality.

Conquering the Nations by the Gospel

So what does that have to do with with us and the Christian church? Well, it made me think of what Jesus said. So think about this. You have seven churches, seven letters, and Jesus is speaking to these seven churches.

And what are churches? They are believers. They're Christians. They're made up of Christians. And Jesus is speaking to his church. And what are we? We are Christians. We are a part of his church, part of his kingdom.

So the teachings of Jesus, the message of Jesus is the same for each of us. It's the same as it was 2000 years ago. So what teaching of Jesus did I think of when I heard of this? Well, I went to Matthew chapter 28 and the same teaching of Jesus.

It holds true for them as it does for us. So if you go to Matthew chapter 28 and you look at 18, 19 and 20 verses 18, 19 and 20, it says,. And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, all the authority.

And I know we we've recited this verse so many times, but it's so important. All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, even Pergamum, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you and along with you always, even to the end of the age.

So here's Israel. Israel was supposed to be approaching the promised land. They're supposed to be conquering these cities so that they can claim the promised land that God has given them. And in the Old Testament, God instructed them to do it with the sword, with armies.

But here in the new covenant, as God's church, we have a different kingdom. We have a different approach, as Jesus has told us here in Matthew chapter 28. Based on his authority, we are to go and make disciples.

Our weapon is the gospel. Our sword is the word of God. And we are to go conquering nations. It says, disciple all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you.

Our weapons are the gospel and the word of God, not the sword and the shield of ancient Israel. But our job is to be conquering nations, just as Israel was to be conquering nations and claiming the promised land.

We are to be conquering nations with the gospel. And here in Pergamum, which their command of Christ is the same as ours, Matthew and Jesus' teaching came before, prior to the existence of these churches.

So their instruction from Christ is the same as our instruction from Christ. Go into all the world based on the authority of Jesus Christ, who has authority in heaven and on earth. He has all authority.

Go make disciples of all nations, even Pergamum. But yet, how can they do that? And that's what Jesus has against them. They are compromising and not conquering. They are behaving and following the teaching of Balaam, who counseled the men of Israel to go after these strange women, which led them to these strange idols, strange gods.

So there are some here in Pergamum that are following the teaching, the counsel of Balaam and the teaching of Balak. And they are compromising in Pergamum, even though it's so enticing there. It's the place of authority, the throne of Satan.

It's Satan's dwelling place. There is an enormous amount of tension, an enormous amount of temptation, an enormous amount of tribulation. But yet Jesus says he has all authority. And his command to us is to go and conquer, baptizing all nations, discipling all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

But what they were doing is compromising and not conquering. And that applies to us today. We have temptation, we have tension, and we have tribulation all around us. Let us not fall into temptation. Let us not follow the teaching of Balaam and the teaching of Balak and compromise in this world.

But transform this world with the gospel and with the word of God. Let's claim this world for Christ because he has all authority. And he has gone before us, and he goes with us. We go with his authority to make disciples and to baptize, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, commanding them to obey all that he's, teaching them to obey all that he's commanded us.

That's our command of Christ. That's our instructions from Christ to be conquering and not compromising here in this world. Hope that was encouraging to you. If you have any questions, I'd love to try to answer your questions, help you out in any way that I can according to scriptures.

If I can pray for you, love to be able to do that. If you wouldn't mind to support this ministry by sharing, giving us a light, giving us a heart so that others can hear the word of God and come to the truth of Jesus Christ.

Christ's Victory, Repentance, and Prayer

Jesus Christ is king, so we proclaim his gospel. We proclaim that he is king. He lived a sinless life. He died on the cross, took the place of sinners. He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf so that we might live, so that we might have forgiveness of sins.

He died, he was buried and put in a tomb. On the third day, he was raised from the dead. Then he ascended on high. He went to the ancient of days, as Daniel says. On the cloud, he went to the ancient of days.

And there he sits at his right hand, the place of authority, commanding us to go and make disciples of all the nations. If you do not know him as your Lord and Savior, we proclaim him as king and we proclaim his goodness and his righteousness and his command to repent of your sins and put your faith and trust in him because he's the only one that can save.

He can save to the uttermost and he will save you no matter who you are, what you've done. He can grant you repentance. He can help you to turn from them and to turn to him and put your faith and trust in him.

I appreciate you. Thank you for watching. Let us close in prayer. Father, we thank you for this time that you've given us to spend together in your word. We thank you for the cross. Thank you for Jesus.

Father, we ask that you would help us to not compromise in this world, but to go forth conquering in your name, remembering your son and the authority that you've given him, that he goes with us as we obey him.

Help us to reach this world for you and for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you for watching. Remember that Jesus is king. Go live in that victory and let's continue to go out there together and proclaim the gospel.

Hope to see you soon.